


The Infernal Cavalry

by Ghislainem70



Series: On the Side of the Angels [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, M/M, Mystery, Post Reichenbach, Slow Burn, Thriller, not canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-03
Updated: 2017-11-03
Packaged: 2019-01-28 18:03:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12612288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghislainem70/pseuds/Ghislainem70
Summary: When Moriarty makes Sherlock Holmes the beneficiary under his will, John wants to burn the extraordinary Renaissance art that is Moriarty's last bequest.  But Sherlock and John must accept Moriarty's will in order to solve his most fiendish puzzle yet:  the Four Angels of the Apocalypse, who will slay one third of humanity.  Post-Reichenbach, nothing and no one will be completely the same.Sequel to The Enigma Variations, although this work stands alone.





	The Infernal Cavalry

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Enigma Variations](https://archiveofourown.org/works/347492) by [Ghislainem70](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghislainem70/pseuds/Ghislainem70). 



Chapter One: Hello Darkness 

 

 

 _Hello darkness, my old friend_  
_I've come to talk with you again_  
_Because a vision softly creeping_  
_Left its seeds while I was sleeping_  
_And the vision that was planted in my brain_  
_Still remains_  
_Within the sound_ _of silence_

-Sound of Silence, all rights reserved Paul Simon, Art Garfunkel. **Listen:[Sound of Silence Remix HERE](http://youtu.be/Jvt1o2ZWisA)**

 

 

221B Baker Street, Marylebone, London.

 

Sherlock carefully folded today's Guardian to conceal the headline:

" **The Detective Vanishes (Again): Sherlock Holmes Not Seen In Public Since His Return from Faked Suicide."** _The elusive detective has been in seclusion for nearly a month, perhaps mourning the dramatic suicide in a Brighton cemetery of his nemesis, James Moriarty aka Richard Brook-- a false identity so cleverly conceived that it deceived even Scotland Yard and Crown Prosecutors...._

 

Forty-five days. That was the record for Sherlock Holmes' confinement to 221B; that had been six years ago. Since returning to London from his long exile, Sherlock had sequestered himself within the flat's boundaries for twenty-three days. And counting. Day followed day, and he didn't see any compelling reason to leave and wasn't particularly interested in examining the reasons -- if there were any -- why that might be. Therefore, given this record, he considered John's initial prodding to leave the flat for a meal or to visit the shops vastly premature.

After a week, John seemed to give up, but with a definite air of biting his tongue and biding his time. He made the command decision that one of them had to reconnoiter the city, and it was probably better if it was him. For a number of reasons.

* * *

"Aren't we having toast?" Sherlock asked absently as John carefully set a steaming mug of tea before him.

John grunted and disappeared into the bathroom. Shower sounds emerged.

Sherlock thought of calling for Mrs. Hudson, but remembered John saying goodbye to her in the doorway, just this morning -- was it afternoon already? Something about going away for the weekend, to visit a friend. Someone new, someone Sherlock didn't know. Little snippets of evidence about the lives of those he cared about told him that everyone and everything in his world had changed, was still changing, in ways large and small since he fell from the Barts rooftop and let himself be dead. Let John believe him dead.

He stalked into the kitchen. One of the most serious challenges in staying confined to the flat was the lack of fresh physical clues for deduction. He would have to take what he could get. First, he confirmed that there was no bread. He inspected the empty bread-wrapper and the receipt in the bin revealing that the bread had been purchased at the Tesco Express in Marylebone Road, four days ago. Not much of a mystery, but it passed the time.

He finished his tea, and waited.

John emerged from the shower and quietly went to his bedroom. Sherlock imagined him choosing his clothing, another opportunity for deduction. What would John choose, and did it mean anything? He had observed John to wear the same soft grey jumper these past four days. It was very fine cashmere from Liberty of London. Mycroft, Sherlock knew, sometimes sent Anthea to Liberty to procure gifts for obligatory occasions. Mycroft would never stoop to personally set foot in an emporium that he would consider common-- Mycroft wore nothing not made or procured for him by his tailor in Bond Street.

Sherlock visualised John's grey jumper: the complete absence of telltale signs of wear-- no marks, pilling, or folding of the cuffs to properly fit the length of John's arms; its woody, slightly papery scent, precisely the smell of the paper-lined fourth drawer of John's bureau. These scant but eloquent signs informed him without question that the jumper had been a Christmas present, and that John hadn't ever worn it. Until now. Why?

What would it mean if John wore it for a fifth day?

* * *

He returned his attention to his laptop, ignoring the crescendo of stories clamouring about his seclusion. His celebrated return did little to mitigate the lacerations to his pride at the hyena-like efficiency with which his reputation had been shredded. He imagined giving a press conference and deducing all of their many scandals, foibles and secrets in front of the whole world, eviscerating them even more thoroughly than they had attempted to do to Sherlock Holmes. He smiled, a little cruelly.

But he had an actual puzzle to work on at present, and so he turned to the problem at hand. Sherlock had sworn to John that they would return to solving crimes only when they agreed they both were ready, and so far, John hadn't said yes and he had very readily refrained from pressing the issue. All requests for the assistance of Sherlock Holmes on new cases were therefore rejected.

But there was one crime he was duty-bound to work upon, and solve if he could, and so far he was able to it entirely do so within the confines of 221B. This was because he hadn't gotten any further than the clue.

He clicked onto a website that offered comparative translations of the Bible. Sherlock was never a church-goer except for weddings and funerals which were both very rich in associations with murder and also, robberies - a very convenient time to housebreak, when everyone would necessarily be absent from their homes upon a very specific date and time. But he was definitely going to have to delve into the Bible for this case, and deeply.

Jim Moriarty had left him one last puzzle in the Great Game, and Sherlock had found the answer to a high degree of probability. "I.O.U." was an alphanumeric code 9-15-21, or Chapter 9, verse 15 through 21 of the Book of Revelations:

_15 And the four angels were loosed, which were prepared for the hour, and the day, and the month, and the year, for to slay the third part of men. 16 And the number of the army of the horsemen were two hundred thousand thousand: and I heard the number of them. 17 And thus I saw the horses in the vision, and them that sat on them, having breastplates of fire, and of jacinth, and brimstone: and the heads of the horses were as the heads of lions; and out of their mouths issued fire and smoke and brimstone. 18 By these three was the third part of men killed, by the fire, and by the smoke, and by the brimstone, which issued out of their mouths. 19 For their power is in their mouth, and in their tails: for their tails were like unto serpents, and had heads, and with them they do hurt. 20 And the rest of the men which were not killed by these plagues yet repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship devils, and idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood: which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk: 21 Neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts._

 

Clicking link by link, Sherlock absorbed the near-infinite interpretations of the Revelations of John. It was reputedly written by John the Apostle in exile on the Greek island of Patmos, although Sherlock noted that authorship was disputed. Most thought he was John the Apostle, others posited a different John altogether. Some even claimed he was John the Baptist. A case of hidden identity.

Revelations, or the Apocalypse of John as it was also called, was variously said to be a history, allegory, prophecy, propaganda, poetry, and perhaps most intriguingly, an encoded document containing alchemical secrets. Sherlock reserved judgment. Probably, it was none of these things, or all of them. Sherlock studied the original Greek and Hebrew and the various English translations thereof, wishing he was better up on classical languages.

Somewhere in the back of his mind the unwelcome thought intruded that Myrcroft was the superior linguist. His brain still didn't feel entirely equal to the puzzle, and he was glad that no one, especially Mycroft, was pressuring him for answers. Anti-terrorism agencies all over the world were collaborating to try to stop Moriarty's terrorist plot.

Apparent terrorist plot, Sherlock reminded himself.

Because with Jim Moriarty, you never really knew.

 

* * *

Sherlock felt a disturbance. He looked up from the glowing screen of his laptop.

"John?" No answer.

The room was cold, and the windows were black rectangles. It was nighttime, almost midnight. The last thing he remembered was... morning tea. John's shower sounds. The disturbance was his stomach complaining of emptiness.

Emptiness.

John wasn't here.

He stood up, switched on a lamp. No John.

John's bedroom door was shut; no light under the door. He slowly opened it.

"John," he said, softly, in case John should be having a nightmare. The room was dark.

John was sitting on the edge of the bed. He was fully clothed. Sherlock couldn't see John' face but he could see the dull gleam of his gun in his hand. He stood very still, hand frozen on the doorknob.

"Go away, Sherlock," John said gently.

"Why?"

"It's better," John said. John usually did know better about most things, not everything, of course, but most things, and so Sherlock considered that, and rejected it. Not possible.

"What are you doing with your gun?" He didn't presume to tell John to put it down. John wanted it; John wouldn't shoot him, or himself, so there wasn't a problem. He was curious, though.

John brought the gun closer to his face, seemingly to examine it; in the dark Sherlock couldn't see his expression but Sherlock thought maybe he was surprised to see the gun in his hand.

"It's. . . better," John repeated mechanically.

"All right," Sherlock said, and padded across the room. He sat on the bed next to John. "I'm hungry. I'm ordering in. . . What do you want?" He didn't actually know what the choices would be this late at night but John liked it when he thought of food before he had to insist.

There was a long, empty pause. He finally understood that John wasn't listening to him and tried to recall a time when John hadn't listened to him before. He didn't think there had been.

"You're not hungry. Fine. It's very late, John, did you know that? I'd like to...." He wanted to say that he wanted to lay down on the bed now, put his arms around John or for John to put his arms around him -- maybe put the gun away, or not; not if John wanted to hold it anyway. Because John generally had very good reasons for everything that he did, even if Sherlock didn't always see them. John didn't seem to want talking, he saw that much. This was a feeling he understood very well, so he just lay quietly on the bed, no flopping or fidgeting. He tucked his cold bare feet under the blanket, where the scars of torture throbbed a little less.

John's thumb was running softly and steadily along the gun. Over and over, the same motion. Sherlock watched, mesmerised. They stayed like this for a long time, it might have been hours, maybe days except it was still dark when John finally spoke.

"No," his voice cracked, and he rubbed his face with his free hand.

"No? No what, John?"

"You aren't -- you can't --- hear that, can you, Sherlock?"

Sherlock listened hard. It was very, very quiet. Baker Street was rarely quiet except around the hour of three o'clock in the morning; that was probably the time, he guessed. He heard nothing but John's breathing. Too fast.

"No, John, I can't hear it." he said carefully, ice seeping into his heart, into his mind. John was hearing things. And it was all his fault. Moriarty's final act before shooting himself had been to seize the hypodermic containing the terror drug-- a refinement of the Baskerville formula-- and inject John with the dose that had been meant for him. There couldn't be any other reason for John Watson have auditory hallucinations, not now. They were home, they were safe. Moriarty was dead. So was Sebastian Moran, and it hadn't seemed to trouble John before that it had been by his own hand. But maybe he had been wrong.

"John, what is it? What do you hear?" He waited, trying to imagine what sound would keep John awake hour after hour, fondling his gun. Moriarty's wicked singsong voice. The sound of the bullet that killed Moran. The sound of his own voice on the rooftop at Barts.

"Your violin," John said.

Sherlock was so surprised that he was unable to frame a retort. He had been playing for John rather a lot since their return to 221B, and John loved to listen. Or at least he had thought so, John had said so and given truthful evidences that it was so. Especially the piece that he had written especially for John, that John had once assumed he had written for Irene Adler.

"Do you want me to play for you now? Would it help you, to sleep I mean?" Sometimes when the nightmares came, John asked him to play. Sherlock knew that it wasn't so much that he found the sound soothing, as that he preferred to give Sherlock something else to focus upon than his shot-up nerves.

John gave a short, harsh laugh. "I already hear you playing. What I want is for it to stop, no that's not...."

Sherlock put his hand very softly on John's arm, and let his hand roam down until it covered John's hand on the gun. John breathed deep, relaxed his fingers, and allowed Sherlock to take it. Sherlock put it in his pocket.

"What piece is it, John? That I'm playing?"

"Bach. You remember. The one Moriarty warned you about. The unfinished melody."

Sherlock recalled tea with Moriarty in 221B:

“ _You know when he was on his deathbed—Bach—he heard his son at the piano playing one of his pieces. The boy stopped before he got to the end."_

_"And the dying man jumped out of bed, ran straight to the piano and finished it."_

_"Couldn't cope with an unfinished melody.”_

 

"Ah," he said. _The Contrapunctus Fourteen._ The unfinished fugue. Bach died before he could finish it.

The piece ended, eerily, in a mid-note, a somber reminder of the death that was ready for all men, at any time. Bach's son made a notation on the score that Bach had put his own name in musical code in those final notes, and it was this fact that had led Sherlock to discover that Moriarty's other clue from that tea, "I.O.U." carved upon an apple, was a code as well.

He carefully put an arm around John and propelled him from the bed to his feet. He felt that it was time for John to come out of this dark room, even though before John he himself had been very prone to sitting in darkened rooms. John stood up readily enough and allowed himself to be guided back into the sitting room, where Sherlock switched on a lamp as he sat in his accustomed chair, and the warm light shone over John's face.

It was then that he saw John's unnaturally dark eyes. He had put his dark contact lenses back on, the ones he wore when he had dyed his hair dark to disguise himself from Moriarty. He hated the sight. He had thought John had got rid of them.

He was also wearing the grey jumper.

No violin. Telly, then. He switched it on, skipping over stories about his return, finding a saccharine movie. It was a romantic comedy about a man and a woman who thought for years and years that they were just close friends, but really were in love. John watched, and Sherlock watched too, but he didn't laughed even when he recognised the parts where he thought people were supposed to laugh. John didn't laugh.

* * *

In the morning, John was still frowning and occasionally shaking his head at the Bach, or whatever other sounds in his head were haunting him, but he valiantly opened his laptop and pretended to work on his blog.

Sherlock decided his long confinement to the flat was officially over. He could call for groceries to be delivered, he knew from long experience that one could get anything at all delivered in London for a price. Groceries, wine, clothes, theatre tickets. Even one's laundering: there was a convenient service called Jeeves that did it for him. Drugs.

No, he wouldn't call for delivery from the shops. He needed to find something that might tempt John, please him even. He couldn't imagine what that might be, but walking up and down the shop aisles might inspire him. He pulled on his coat, wound his scarf around his throat. He had found the articles hanging carefully upon the rack in the flat, and never asked John how he came to have them after his "death." Some things, he knew now, were better not to know.

There was a brisk knock at the door.

John sprang up, edgy. Menacing. Sherlock knew he wanted the gun and for the first time was actually glad John didn't have it; it was there, heavy in his pocket.

"It's all right, although I quite agree that the gun may well be in order," he said with an awkward attempt at wit in the face of John's disorientation. "We have a formal visitor, John -- a lawyer."

He had heard the measured creak of expensive oxfords treading slowly up the stair, the thump of a heavy briefcase, in fact a barrister's case from the sound of it, brushing the walls on the way up. He opened the door to find a small, bald-headed man in a dark suit almost as impeccable and severely tailored as Mycroft's own, grasping a well-worn leather barrister's case in his hand.

"Mr. Sherlock Holmes?" The man presented a card of dazzling whiteness.

**_Edgar M. Whipplestone_ **

**_Solicitor_ **

 

No address, no telephone number.

"You've found me," he replied, "But I'm not taking on cases at present. You may call again ---" here he looked at John, trying to compose himself, but almost visibly hearing the strains of Bach droning over and over in his skull "---perhaps come back in a month. In the meantime there's always Scotland Yard."

"You misunderstand me, Mr. Holmes," Whipplestone said phlegmatically. "I've had occasion to use the services of detectives, of course. Missing heirs, that sort of thing. But no, I'm not here for your services, I am here to perform a service."

"Who is your client?" Sherlock demanded. But he already knew the answer.

"My client is an individual who wishes to remain anonymous. He is, however, deceased, if that means anything to you."

"It may," Sherlock says. "You understand that in my line of work I encounter a great number of deceased individuals."

John sat down, evidently deciding that the portly lawyer wasn't going to harm Sherlock physically. He kept a dark eye on Whipplestone's case.

"Please take a seat," Sherlock said courteously. "I'm afraid I can't offer you tea - -I was just going out to the shops."

"Not at all. It is Saturday. Thank you for agreeing to let me in, I am not in the habit of intruding on people unannounced, I assure you. However, in my defence I've left a number of messages and sent several letters. Sometimes the old fashioned way is best. A personal call. And I understood from the press that, ahem, you've been in seclusion."

"He's not in seclusion," John said querulously. "He just said he was going out."

Whipplestone examined John calmly. "Indeed he did. I didn't mean to give offense. Just repeating what the press said. Not that they are any real use in getting at the truth, eh Mr. Holmes?"

Sherlock made a noncommittal sound, refusing to read anything into that, and sat as well. "If you might come to the point, Mr. Whipplestone. You mentioned 'a service.'"

Whipplestone withdrew an oversized leather portfolio bound with a black ribbon from his case, and handed it to Sherlock.

"If you would be so kind as to open it, and to sign this declaration," here he withdrew a document, and indicated the "X" for Sherlock's signature. "It simply attests that you have taken receipt on this date."

"Why are you giving this to me?" Sherlock asked. He made no move to open the leather portfolio.

"I apologise. I have not been clear. You, Mr. Holmes, are a beneficiary under my client's will."

"Beneficiary?"

"Yes, beneficiary. My client amended his will -- I am not at liberty to say when -- to include a bequest to you. I was instructed, upon confirmation of the death of my client, to deliver the item in the portfolio to you without fail in my additional capacity as his appointed executor. I have done my duty."

Whipplestone looked nervous at this. He mopped his brow with a snowy handkerchief, initials EMW, Sherlock noted. Despite his apparent sang-froid, it was clear that there would be consequences if he had failed to perform this duty.

"Sherlock --" John said warningly.

Sherlock handed the portfolio back without opening it. "I believe I am within my rights to decline the bequest. I will so state on this document, and you may dispose of it by any means you see fit. I advise burning it. Good day, Whipplestone."

Whipplestone looked positively terrified at this. "In the event of your refusal to accept the bequest, I am to give you a message."

John sprang up. "That's it. Leave. Now. Right now," and he hauled Whipplestone up by the arm with the war-honed strength and precision of which he was capable at surprising times, across the room and out the door. He slammed it on the man, and locked it after. John glowered at Sherlock with those dark eyes, daring him to object. Sherlock said nothing. He had a very definite feeling that this was not a good time to defy John.

They both heard Whipplestone shifting outside the door to 221B.

"My client said to tell you, Mr Holmes, that even angels need help. That is the message," Whipplestone said loudly on the other side of the door.

John frowned.

"It's the case, John. Moriarty's plot. Four angels to slay a third of mankind. He's giving me-- us -- a clue," Sherlock said, feeling an uncomfortable stab of guilt because he felt that familiar thrill, strong as a jolt of pure heroin, just imagining what the clue might be. Just like before. _Moriarty still wants to play but I don't, I definitely don't,_ he told himself sternly.

"Not us. You. Then take the bloody thing. But give it to Lestrade, or Mycroft, and the proper people can look into it. Right? It's not for you, Sherlock. Not for you, do you hear?"

Sherlock took the portfolio from Whipplestone and signed the declaration of receipt with his elegant flourish. They watched the man hurry down the stair with far more agility than he had mounted it.

Sherlock dutifully rang Lestrade and even Mycroft, to advise of Moriarty's bequest. John sat stoically in his chair, reading yesterday's Guardian, scowling at the headlines. Sherlock placed the portfolio on the table and smoothed the black ribbon with his fingers.

"I thought you were going to the shops," John said.

"Of course I am, just going," Sherlock said, but his eyes were locked on the portfolio and he didn't notice that John wasn't actually reading the newspaper, just staring at the page.

"Let's open it together, shall we?" John said, his voice inflectionless.

* * *

The moment felt every bit as fraught and perilous as the last time they sparred with Moriarty: Moriarty had killed himself; they had walked away. But here he was again, playing the game from beyond the grave. The strange thing, Sherlock thought, was that he hadn't anticipated it before this.

Sherlock pulled the ribbon and it fluttered free. Then he opened the leather cover of the portfolio. They both gasped.

It was a work of art, a woodcut. Obviously an original, not a reproduction or a page from an old book. John imagined it was very valuable. He wanted to throw it into the fire.

"Okay. What is it?" John asked.

"Albrecht Durer. He was the most famous artist in his day, and also a very brilliant mathematician. This is part of his woodcut series on the Apocalypse of John. It was made in 1496, or thereabouts, but this particular print would be from a later series of pressings."

"So you were right. I.O.U. really did mean the apocalypse. Brilliant, really, Sherlock." John said with a shadow of his usual warmth. It didn't give either of them any joy that Sherlock was right.

"Yes. This print is called, I believe, _The Four Angels of Death._ It depicts the very angels described in Revelations 9:15 - 21. The British Museum possesses a fine copy, but not as fine as this one."

"Part of a series, you say?"

"Yes," Sherlock said, peering at the woodcut with his magnifying glass, already lost in the magnificent details.

He looked up to see the door slamming behind John Watson, and the sound of him skipping stairs as he pounded down into Baker Street. Sherlock dashed after him.

* * *

John had caught up to Whipplestone, still walking up Baker Street. No waiting car; he must have taken the train from Euston Station, Sherlock surmised, recalling the white card, no address. Not a London solicitor.

"Are there more?" John demanded breathlessly, a hard grip on the man's arm. Whipplestone winced.

"More? I'm not at liberty to say," he said defiantly.

Sherlock took the other arm. "Good thinking, John," he said truthfully. He ought to have thought of it himself.

"After this one, did your... client instruct you to make any further deliveries? Is there more to this bequest?"

Whipplestone drew himself up. "I don't know what sort of lawyers you are accustomed to dealing with, Mr. Holmes, but I do not betray the confidences of my client. Not even after they have passed on. Whether I have received further instructions, or not is between my client and myself, as a matter of attorney-client privilege."

Whipplestone shut his mouth firmly and turned pale.

"Come back to the flat and we'll call my solicitor-- we'll sort it out," Sherlock said. "No tea, but I believe we can offer you something stronger -- you look like you could use it." He imagined Mycroft's delight - a consultation on ancient languages and British testamentary law, all in one morning. He ground his teeth.

"I --" Whipplestone sank to his knees. John rushed to support him but the man collapsed with a strangled cry.

"Cardiac arrest!" John leaped to his aid as Sherlock dialed 999, applying vigorous CPR and heart massage with violent blows to the chest. He finally stopped as the ambulance arrived, shaking and drenched with perspiration. The paramedics swiftly bore the man away, but John shook his head.

Edmund M. Whipplestone, solicitor and executor of the last will and testament of James Moriarty, would be performing no further duties for his illustrious client.

 

To be continued....


End file.
